For genre fare Hollywood has long turned to Asia for a creative spark. The Magnificent Seven, The Departed, and the Ring series are all imported remakes. Now here come the Pang brothers, Oxide and Danny, with an English-language remake of their own 1999 action thriller. As Joe London, a highly sought international assassin, Nicolas Cage broods his way through the movie. Joe has landed in Bangkok to do the bidding of a mob faction. It’s (could you guess?) his last job, but some double-dealing and Joe’s failure to maintain a strictly professional level of cold-bloodedness result in gunfire’s lighting up the Thai capital. The creative spark here is pretty dim: couple a hangdog Cage clad in black with the Pangs’ washed-out palette and you get something like a Nine Inch Nails video in need of some trimming so it can be posted to YouTube. 99 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + suburbs
